I am still on cloud nine from last weekends retreat to Lone Oak Texas! A wonderful giving group of people spreading the love, vintage machine style. Again, I must say that my recollection of this fantastic event put into text does not capture the utter essence of its greatness. I am still marveling over the amazing things I saw. Did you catch my last post of 2019 Toga? Toga stands for treadle on gathering academy and it is just that, vintage machines and the people who own them, sell them, oil them, doctor them, demo them…..and on and on and on. 🙂
The above picture represents the raffle at the close of Toga. How it works, everyone who attends brings as much stuff as they wish to donate to raise money for the Treadle group to host it at a retreat center.
Table and tables of garage sale stuff, some crafting related or sewing related, and some not so much. Lots of unwanted junk that you get to take home (everyone snickers about this)
Last year, I knew nothing of how this worked so I did not buy but two raffle tickets. When you purchase a raffle ticket, it gets dropped into the drum, and they empty the tables by calling out the name you wrote on the ticket (which next year I am thinking I am going to write someone else’s name HAHAHA). Each time your name is called you go up to the tables and snatch a goody, whichever you want. Towards the end of this, the very unwanted stuff remains, and you get to take it home with you. Last year my name was called about 10 times and I DID NOT buy that many tickets.
If all the tickets are called and there are things still left on the table, they start the drum over and call names until every last bit is gone.
I ended up with some trash, some keep, some gift away, and some the jury is still out on HA. I did not end up with the pin cushion above, but I did walk out with one. What I thought was neat about this, someone kept their cat food container, which was perfectly sized for a small tomato pincushion to drop into. They then made a cloth quilted flower and attached it to the top. Cute! There were also some chenille potholders I would just love to have, but someone beat me to it.
Lovely gifted items Brough to the raffle table. I will have more details about this as well, so stay tuned!
I ended up with a root bitters bottle. What the heck is that? I also ended up with a a true scale real looking snail that is ceramic and made in Japan, neat but what am I going to do with it. To neat to trash, to weird/unknown to know how to use it. I ended up with a quilt top in pretty bad shape. The gingham seemed to be the culprit of unraveling causing block failure. The good thing about this top, I can make some repairs and will put it on the longarm to transform it and finish someone else’s antique UFO LOL. I ended up with fabric from the raffle table, all of that is usable. And I even purchased some fat quarters. Along with those, I also purchased a new spool pin doily that is black and gold which matches my featherweight perfectly. Last years and this years are now on my machine LOL.
And it looks like my featherweight needs to be cleaned. My little work horse I named Abacus because I can really count on him (get it, it is so punny!). He has sewn all of my quilts since July of this year.
Like I said Abacus is a real work horse. I named him a male name on purpose since other men just don’t wanna work. And the men I have had in my life did not work out, probably because they would not work….hence the ability to count on something manly. So be it a machine of petite proportions!
Ana did a neat fat quarter bag using two fat quarters sewn right sides together and folded as you see the minion one on the table, then folded again as you see the Ella one on the top of that. Running a ribbon for a drawing string into the casing made create a quick, clever little bag. I thought it was so neat to see the other fat quarter peaking through to get a neat affect. Ooooo the things I could put into these.
Dr. Lisa gave a wonderful demonstration how to make a drawstring backpack (very trendy right now). During her demo, she forgot her scissors, borrowed a pair. With her first snip had to stop and bandage as she cut herself. Now, this is not really funny, as we have all done this. But oh my goodness, to have a good laugh about it right then is just what the dr ordered! Bandaged and ready to go to the next step. I may try to make one of these, hopefully there will be no bloodshed. 😉
And dang it, I did take more photos of this demo and none of them turned out right. I must have accidentally touched the touch screen of the camera and did not realize it, which put the rest of the pictures of this class into a funk. Sorry. Technology sometimes makes me scream (another reason to really like vintage machines!)
While in a demonstration, something amazing happened. When I came out and put my papers from the class onto my sewing machine, there was this laying there in it’s once barren throat. The word gift written the bag that housed a manual from an old Domestic treadle machine that resembled my machine, but was a tad different. A lovely thing to come upon totally by surprise and anonymously at that! This is truly part of the toga experience, to feel the embrace with no touching. To know others like you are everywhere, and can surprise you by the simplest of things. I am still in awe of this kind gesture. Thank you whoever you are! It is a treasure!
Someone came and demonstrated a spinning wheel. We all got to see woolen fleece turned into yarn. My goodness the capture of my shutter speed of the camera really has got me to thinking how many RPMs does thing do? A simple mechanical energy device that can spin so fast. Interested in seeing this Live Action? I captured a video and uploaded it to my channel on youtube
And there was the fantastic block swap. This block is perfectly sewn by a hand crank machine!!!!!!!
So Quilty or unquilty news here. I have not posted anything of mine in almost three weeks! But that does not mean I have not been busy.
Meet Palmer, one of 5 new kittens. The 6th one passed yesterday., Isn’t this so adorable, and then they grow up and get attitude, or should I say cat-itude!
Here is my leader ender I am currently working, and it is to the point of not really being a leader ender anymore, it is in lots of stripy sets that just need to all come together. I can’t wait to get this one done.
I am quilting this for my Mom. It is a simple geometric pattern of rectangles and squares. I thought why not match some of that orange fabric and make circles that meander all over, so that is what I did. I learned some valuable lessons with quilting this, which I will share when it is done. And no I did not make my goal of uploading a quilting video of this. This thing had, shall we say, a wardrobe malfunction. I will get into more of that in my next post.
This week I stopped into the local goodwill and saw this on the table and priced at $25. The sign said tested and works. So I bought it and seeing someone have a Singer 403A at Toga this year, I knew how to clean it and somewhat take it apart. So that is what I did last night. I have no cams for it, but I will probably never use them. I am in awe of the perfect stitches and tension it has and makes. And believe me, it DEFINITELY needed a good cleaning. While in cleaning mode, I also lubed it up and oiled. Ready to go another million miles. This may lead to some free motion quilting trys. It only came with one bobbin. Does anyone know what size bobbin this takes?
The remaining trees in the backyard finally are firewood. I am sad as these two trees were about 100 ft tall, but they were poplars. Poplars, as they age get large amounts of sapwood in their core. Sapwood is between the layer of bark and the first growth ring. Poplars center ring expand into sapwood and before you know it, the strength of the tree is compromised. For safety reasons we had them taken down. Here is an example of what I am talking about. The smallest wood being the strongest, the largest being the weakest. The weakest part is at the ground.
In the last 3 years I have had two healthy looking trees just fall over. This gave clues as to the remaining trees and their fall potential. It was a large cost, but I was worried about someone getting hurt, or either one falling on my house or a neighboring house. I will miss their shade for several summers. Now since we left just the last 6 ft base, a perfect place for a hammock.
And in last weeks post I showed some beautiful vintage sewing machines and in my editing of photos found a forgotten one. Some sewing eye candy for you sewing machine enthusiasts.
I have a mess of things that need tending too, so I will refrain from making a goals list in the quilting dept this week. Next weekend I should have a couple more shares either finishes for me or my Mom.
From all you block swappers in last years toga, here is the quilt I made using those blocks.
I quilted this in all feathers and can’t wait for the quilt hop in town to show it to the masses. Perhaps I will enter this in the Sulphur Springs Quilt Show. This is simply named Spools. The toga blocks are on the right and left sides of this twin sized quilt. All the leftover HSTs forming the sides at two opposing corners. A bunch of cheddar in between. It is saying CHEEEESE!
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog, I sure would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment in the comment section. May happiness rise to meet you in the coming week. Later Taters!
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